The tension between Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack Obama was real, but Bibi wasn’t always as unhappy about it as you might think. The same was true, to a lesser degree, with Joe Biden and Bill Clinton during their presidencies. There are times when Netanyahu, a cautious pragmatist by nature, needs some help with his right flank, and American presidents can inadvertently provide that help by tying the Israeli prime minister’s hands and publicly pressuring him to enact a settlement freeze or do something else that will upset the hawks in his coalition but for which Bibi himself can appear blameless.

To his coalition, Netanyahu plays the good cop. Presidents play the bad cop.

The opposite is true on the international stage. For example, sometimes the best way for the U.S. to get Iran to rein in its proxies armies’ mischief is by letting the Israeli government’s bellicose language go unchallenged. If you keep attacking the Israelis, a US president might suggest privately to Tehran, I can’t stop them from bombing your nuclear facilities this time.

That dynamic holds true with regard to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations as well: the U.S. sees its role as one that facilitates compromise. That usually means nudging Israel to release more terrorist prisoners than it’s comfortable with, or accepting vague language on security guarantees.

Yet President Trump may have just instigated a role reversal with his response to Hamas’s threatened suspension of the ceasefire agreement.

“As far as I’m concerned, if all of the hostages aren’t returned by Saturday at 12 o’clock—I think it’s an appropriate time—I would say, cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out,” Trump said on Monday. He repeated the message for emphasis: “I’d say they ought to be returned by 12 o’clock on Saturday, and if they’re not returned—all of them, not in drips and drabs, not two and one and three and four and two. Saturday at 12 o’clock, and after that, I would say, all hell is going to break out.”

Trump’s hostage negotiator Steve Witkoff echoed that on Wednesday: “The president said all that we all need to know, which is Saturday, 12 o’clock he expects there to be something different occurring [from what Hamas has threatened], and if it’s not there’s going to be a big problem.”

Sorry, Bibi: Just when you think you’ve learned all of Rosencrantz’s lines, you find out you’re Guildenstern.

Netanyahu was suddenly thrust into the role of good cop, and it’s not entirely clear how comfortable he is with this arrangement. Since Trump’s declaration, Netanyahu has worked to lower expectations for a mass hostage release without explicitly contradicting the president.

Let’s cut to the chase: How many hostages can Hamas release this Saturday without inviting pitiless retribution?

There are 76 remaining in Gaza. Trump’s comments didn’t seem to leave much wiggle room, so Saturday’s noon deadline would mean Hamas must release 76 hostages.

Israel’s security cabinet at first simply said it supported Trump’s position but did not specify what that position was exactly. Then, as the Times of Israel explained, an Israeli official said that “all” the hostages meant all nine hostages on the list for the first stage of the ceasefire who are still alive (that would be nine out of 17).

After that, an official said that the prime minister’s position was the same as Trump’s: “all of them.” But, in classic talmudic fashion, saying “all of them” instead of “all of our hostages” was viewed as leaving room for interpretation.

Finally, Wednesday evening saw reports that Israel has privately communicated to Hamas that if it releases the three hostages as per the original agreement on Saturday, the ceasefire will hold. This seems to be Israel’s way of embracing its new role as the good cop.

But that doesn’t fully end the drama. What if Hamas releases three hostages on Saturday? Israel might accept that. But will Trump?

On the one hand, Trump is unlikely to do anything that would blow up the ceasefire deal if both sides are still committed to adhering to its terms. He’s proud of the deal and doesn’t want the war to resume if he can help it.

On the other hand, in this scenario, Hamas’s threat to suspend the deal would go unpunished. Further, while we can assume Trump and Netanyahu are privately communicating over their messaging, that messaging remains vague—and that could just as easily confuse Bibi and Trump as it could Hamas.

The closer it gets to the weekend without any breaking news, the more likely it becomes that the hostage releases will continue as originally scheduled. If Trump’s threats are seen as the reason the ceasefire gets back on track, it should be enough of a victory for the president to claim. And he’ll have made Netanyahu look like the more reasonable one in the process.